1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle lamp and, more particularly, to a vehicle lamp having an armoring lens attached to a lamp body.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In a lamp for a vehicle such as a car, an armoring lens is attached to a front opening portion of a lamp body. The armoring lens comprises a red lens formed from a translucent resin for a tail lamp, a white lens for a back lamp, etc. To manufacture such an armoring lens, lenses of a plurality of colors are integrally molded together. In an exemplary conventional manufacturing method, after injection molding a white lens, the white lens is moved into another mold having a cavity for molding a red lens, thereby integrating both the lenses with each other during the injection molding of the red lens. In a simultaneous multicolor molding system in which after injection molding of a white lens, only an upper mold is replaced by another upper mold having a cavity for molding a red lens. This process can be further repeated for other colors of the lens. Configuration is made such that the laminate portions of both the above-mentioned lenses are molded simultaneously at the time of injection molding in which both the lenses are integrated with each other.
A conventional armoring lens thus molded is shown in FIGS. 6 and 7. Here, an armoring lens a is to be attached to the whole opening portion of a lamp body. The armoring lens comprises a second red lens c laminated on the upper surface of the outer circumferential edge of a first white lens b.
However, in a vehicle lamp having such a structure, particularly in such an armoring lens, for example, as shown in FIG. 6, the area for the joint portion in the laminate portion of the first lens b and the second lens c can not be made large, so that the bonding strength (or joining strength) is low. In addition, because a joint end surface d of the laminate portion is exposed, rainwater and other objects directly contact the joint end surface d, thereby causing the second lens c to separate.
In contrast, in an armoring lens shown in FIG. 7, an outer edge portion e of the second lens c that wraps around from the upper surface to the outer surface of the first lens b is formed so as to be elongated depthwise. Accordingly, while it is possible to ensure necessary joining strength, only the outer edge portion e is observed as a deep and dark portion when the lens is viewed from its front side, so that the external appearance of the lens is poor. In addition, a joint end surface d in the laminate portion is exposed similarly to the case of FIG. 6, so that separation is caused in the second lens c.